


The Hanged Man

by athena_crikey



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8612827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: Gray Fox passes the keepers of Shadow Moses without trouble; they all recognize him for what he is.





	

**_i: Noise Ghost_ **

Metal is far crueller than ice. It draws in the frigid cold and keeps it nestled in tight, takes the icy knives out of the wind only to turn them inwards itself. No metal home can be heated by a sole oil flame: keeping warmth in its merciless belly requires the constant pumping of a dirty engine and a streak of exhaust against the pure skyline.

Raven sits in the lifeless shell of the M1, waiting patient as a seal hunter at the edge of the ice. His men are less patient, fidget endlessly at their stations and complain of the cold and the storms and the wind. He ignores them, as always. In this place they are ignorant children, with no knowledge of either the climate or the art of ice hunting. He turns his mind from its reflections on his subordinates’ uselessness with a rumbling sigh. The wind is picking up again, and it brings whispers on its white wings, warnings from afar. There is a noise ghost walking in Shadow Moses.

He is aware of its coming far in advance, keen eyes scanning the bright landscape. The landmines are perfectly covered, by both his seamless work and the wind’s own aid, but the creature avoids them effortlessly. Like all its kind it has no shape, passes unseen through the whiteness and leaves only shallow footprints behind. The wind wraps it in an icy cloak, quick to shelter its kin. Raven settles his bulky frame and watches. Noise ghosts are no threat to cool heads. There is no fighting them. If one remains inside and calm until they leave, they are powerless. Of course, it’s finding the strength to do so that’s the difficulty.

It is still a dozen yards from the tank when the hissing begins. The creature’s voice slips in between the cracks in the metal beast’s hide, creeps with malevolent ease down through minute fractures and crevasses widened by the shifts from the heated hanger to the frozen exterior. The whispers are dry and brittle as they wrap around the soldiers, slithering and coiling like serpents, their pitch rising and falling with the unsteady shuffling pace of a broken mind. First soft as rabbit feet on powdered snow, then hard and anxious as caribou over shale, the irregularity scrapes against Raven’s nerves and makes his head ache.

The hissing grows louder as the ghost approaches, the sounds taking on an almost physical presence, constricting, suffocating, choking. They are naked hands against the throat, snake scales slipping over skin, twine rope twisted about the neck. Outside, the creature begins to circle the tank, the ceaseless susurrus wrapping tighter as it mutters and hisses to an arrhythmic metallic jingling. Inside the very air seems to be closing in, tight and hot and stifling.

_Think it over, Snake! Hahahahaha! Do you hear that sound? Snake! It’s me. It’s me. Over and out! Over and out! Hahahahaha!_

The mutterings grow still louder, until the tank itself begins to creak and whine with the words. Behind Raven, one man groans. The other jams a clip into his sidearm, hands shaking so hard it takes him three tries to slot it in.

“Do not move. Do not leave,” rumbles Raven, as the gibbering grows louder, seems to pry apart the very foundations of the tank to crush them. The air is so heavy it seems to drive the air from his body.

_I’ll do you a favour. It’s me! It’s me, Snake! You’re in a minefield. Over and out!_

The monitors are vibrating with the rattling screeches now, consoles shaking. Behind him, something sitting loose on a counter tumbles off with a clatter. The words wrap closer and closer, twisting and strangling and crushing, driving sense and reason from weak minds.

_That elevator is going to be your tomb. You should have listened to my warnings. Hahahahahaha! Over and out, over and out, over and out!_

There’s a long, scratching hiss from outside; the noise ghost has circled so close it is brushing against the side of the tank. The hissing reaches fever-pitch, metal whining in sympathy.

His gunner snaps with a scream, leaps to his feet, throws open the hatch and scrambles out, firing his pistol indiscriminately. The navigator follows him, his own mad yell echoing in the valley. Raven reaches up and pulls the hatch closed behind them.

The gunfire stops within seconds. There are two brief screams, followed by two wet thuds.

Inside the tank, the whispers stop dead.

Outside, the white landscape has been sprayed red. Vulcan Raven sits still until he is sure the noise ghost is gone, and then picks up the radio. There is no point fighting an act of nature. But Liquid will have to assign him a new crew.

**_ii: Dead Man_ **

It’s been a long time since he saw a dead man walking. Years and years in fact, the memory smelling of ashes and pine and the coppery tang of rage. Not his own, never his own; Mantis won’t crawl from the grave. Hatred may leave ghosts, but it takes a capacity for real burning rage to raise the dead.

This one is all wrong, though. Stinks of science, of chemicals and synthetics, of alloy bones and plastic skin. Maybe that’s why he paints himself in red, smears it across the moulded shell holding the rotting corpse inside upright, drips it like oil into the cracks in panels replacing joints and tendons. Maybe, considers Mantis with a crooked smile as he watches the ninja stalk the halls, it makes him feel more human. He nudges the heavy wooden doors open and waits, hovering over the tiled floor.

Mantis can’t read the thoughts of dead men, if they have any. The space around them is made up of whispers and bangs, made by present events blowing through the crypts of their minds rousing out dusty echoes. There are none of the sickeningly viscous lusts and desires that churn like rancid butter beneath the thoughts of the living. It’s curiously refreshing.

The ninja appears eventually, walking straight down the centre of the hall. Mantis’ eyes tell him there’s nothing there, but sight became a mere background noise longer ago than he can remember.

“He’s not here yet,” says Mantis, the forests of his youth crackling merrily in his ears. Dead men are tied to one person alone.

The ninja stares steadily at him, the air around him filled with nothing but old conversations; _use your ears – this bridge is closed – your number one fan._ On the floor beneath him, blood is pattering slowly down, dripping from him like tears. “You can wait,” Mantis offers generously.

The ninja still stares. When he speaks, it’s without moving an inch. “You’re not real,” he states flatly. Below that, like voices chattering in the distance; _The elevator is going to be your tomb – that’s your chance, don’t miss it – it’s time you learn why they call me Fox._

“In this world, no more than you,” agrees the psychic.

“Then you won’t stop him.” The ninja walks straight past him to the secret door, and draws his sword. His thoughts trail behind him, scratching like rats at a wall; _I’m sure you’ll put up a good fight – I’ll show you what fear really is._

Mantis, frowning, waves his hand and the bookshelf slides away granting access to the hidden exit. There is nothing to tell a man with no future. The ninja strides out as silently as he came, followed by dry whispers. _Come and find out, Snake. Go through the front door._

**_iii: Bakr_ **

Sniper Wolf is human. She gets cold, and she gets tired. With proper gear and a sheltered location she can stand cold worse than this, and with time to prepare and the proper array of drugs she can maintain a nearly 80% efficiency rate for 72 hours straight – 100% for the first 24. That doesn’t make her inhuman, just exceedingly well trained. Most of that training came from the battlefield.

Sniper Wolf is an expert at her work. She’s seen the entire spectrum of targets, from men who rush across open ground with no regard for their lives to those who paint every inch of their skin in the colours of their surroundings and creep slow as sloths. But it’s been years since she saw a camouflage expert this talented. Years since she was only able to track a man by his shadow.

He is walking in a straight line along the open corridor to the Communication Tower; his footprints appear on the light powder dusting as if stamped by an invisible hand. Even through her scope, there is no trace of an outline. No hint of movement, no misalignment with the background. The only indication of an intruder is the shadow moving irrevocably towards her. That, and the footprints. The only two signs of existence no one can erase. A worthy target, although whether or not he is a worthy opponent is yet to be seen. Sniper Wolf, watching the footsteps appear through her scope, draws back the bolt on her rifle.

There is an instant between the decision to make a shot and the actual pulling of the trigger which, in her case, is too small to measure. In that split-second, the target dodges. She does not see him move, simply sees the new pair of footprints appear to the left of where she took her aim. It’s not an impossible fluke; like so much else, she has seen it before. She draws back the bolt, another cartridge sliding into the chamber, and takes aim.

In the same instant, too late for her to alter her aim, the footsteps move again. And now Sniper Wolf knows this is no fluke. Men can dodge telegraphed shots, but not with such split-second timing.

The old soldiers in her youth – she thought of them as old at the time, although they can’t have been older than she is now – told stories of ghosts who walked the battlefield in the guise of men. Told of ghosts whose hatred drove them from their graves in search of those who wronged them. Who would slaughter a dozen, a hundred, a thousand men who stood in their way to reach the sole person in their world they could recognize through the red mist of rage. Like Bakr in the ancient tale, even in death they were cruel and merciless.

Sniper Wolf, suddenly cold in the Alaskan wind, raises her gun and relaxes her stiffened muscles. She won’t telegraph this shot.

In the white corridor below, there’s a crackling flash of blue light. It races over the length of a sword’s blade, held horizontally in apparently thin air. The footprints stop, standing still in the centre of the passage with a pale shadow on the snow behind them. Sniper Wolf’s lips twitch upwards; she pulls the bolt back. The shadow doesn’t move. In one tiny movement, her finger squeezes the trigger.

The blade moves so fast she doesn’t see it. All she sees is a bolt of lightning, slicing upwards through the air. And then the sword disappears in a final flicker of blue light. When it stops, the shadow is gone as well.

Instantly, Sniper Wolf pulls back the bolt and fires a second round through the air above the last set of footprints. There is no movement, no blood, no sound.

To her left, there’s a click, and the heavy door swings open and then shut again. Sniper Wolf watches it for several seconds, and then pulls out her clip to reload the spent bullets. She doesn’t bother to call it in; it will only result in more wasted bullets.

There is no stopping hungry ghosts.


End file.
